


Cloud Watching

by ifyouwereamelody



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Flustered Zuko, Married Life, Outdoor Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:41:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28462545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifyouwereamelody/pseuds/ifyouwereamelody
Summary: Katara's not sure exactly what it is about the scandalised expression that spills across her husband's face — whether she revels more in seeing his Fire Lord façade crack or knowing that she’s the one doing it — but it never seems to grow old.A bit of gentle teasing on a hilltop leads to more than Katara bargained for.
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 114
Collections: zutara (ATLA)





	Cloud Watching

**Author's Note:**

> So this happened without any planning whatsoever. A plot took root and wouldn't go away, so this is the product of a very haphazard write in between night shifts. Hope it's a nice wee something to end this blasted year on!

‘I know what you’re doing.’

Katara bites back the laugh that wells up in her chest, presses her lips together to hold her smirk in check, and musters every scrap of feigned innocence she can find in herself as she looks sideways at her husband.

‘What?’

Her voice is light and easy, carried away like cherry blossoms on the summer breeze that wafts around them. The sweetness of it does approximately nothing to steal the reprimand from Zuko’s eyes.

‘I know. What you’re doing.’

And now the smile wins out, spilling across her face as he directs a pointed nod, a raised eyebrow down at his lap. His lap where, for the last five minutes, her hand has been slowly, nonchalantly, completely of its own accord, working its way up from his knee to that beguiling line of muscle that runs the length of his inner thigh.

The grass is sun-stroked and soft against her bare legs, her skirt rucked up above her knees as she presses herself closer into his side and rests her chin on his shoulder; a tremor runs through him, just enough for her to feel, as she lets a breath loose against his neck.

‘Okay, what am I doing?’

His eyes are flashes of sunlight, brilliant enough that the warmth in them manages to reach her even past the narrowed outlet of his scowl.

‘Trying to get a rise out of me.’

Her snort of laughter comes startled and unbidden, but unquestionably gleeful in the face of his slip.

‘Nice choice of words, there.’

‘It’s not going to work.’

Katara twists up to a kneel, sitting back on her heels and nodding solemnly as she studies him with mock-seriousness.

‘Hm. You’re right. It’s clearly not having the desired effect.’

And before he has the chance to catch on to her sarcasm and object, she’s swung a leg over his lap, coming to settle with her thighs bracketing his hips and her arms slung around his shoulders. He lets out a grunt of alarm, casting a flustered glance around at the still-deserted hilltop and showing off the red tint that’s come down over his ears.

A triumphant laugh bubbles up out of Katara’s mouth.

‘There it is.’

 _That’s_ the look she’s been waiting for: the look that always blares loud and scandalised across his face whenever she mutters something a bit too private a bit too loudly in the palace halls, or lets her hands wander past the belt of his tunic as they stand in a meeting. She’s not sure exactly what it is — whether she revels more in seeing his Fire Lord façade crack or knowing that _she’s_ the one doing it — but it never seems to grow old.

‘Katara, this is a public hill—’

‘—which no one but us ever comes to. When’s the last time you saw someone else up here? It’s _theoretically_ public, at best.’

It’s always when he starts grumbling under his breath that she knows she’s made an argument he can’t refute, and most days this is where she relents and lets him be.

Today, though...

Today, she thinks she can push him a little further. Brushing her fingers across the stitching at the front of his robes, she makes a show of shaking her head in disappointment.

‘Shame.’

‘What?’

His eyes have narrowed again, and Katara holds another laugh back from her lips as she leans in to brush her cheek against his, to murmur tauntingly in his ear.

‘A firebender who can’t handle a little heat? A tragedy, really.’

She starts to draw away, but barely gets a glimpse of the burning in his eyes before he’s pulling her back in, bringing her lips to his with an effortless familiarity that still manages to make her toes curl. Smiling against him, she cards her fingers back through his hair, and for a few moments they settle into the shared space of their mouths meeting; kissing just to kiss, kissing because his misgivings have fallen away with her jab at his fierce firebender’s pride, kissing because they’re young and they’re here and they _can_.

Then, somewhere in the press of his chest against hers, the pull of her arms around his neck, it changes. There’s no tangible transition — no tightening of grip or sudden surge in pace as they slip into something with direction, with _purpose_ — just an indefinable shift, brought to recognition only by six years of marriage and countless nights spent melting into one another.

When she finds the will to pull herself, just barely, from his gravity, her words are scattered on her breath.

‘Wow, this is actually—’

‘—good. Really good.’ He speaks through lips that roam along her neck with a lazy desire; a gentle, teasing cloud-float across her collarbone that sends her head tipping back to watch the drift of their inspiration through the sky above her.

‘Yeah, it— Ah, _yes_ , do that again.’

He doesn’t, ignoring her whine of protest to draw back so he can unleash the full force of his gaze on her. He’s flushed and questioning, his expression bordering on the same kind of giddy incredulousness that she can feel pounding in her chest, and it strikes her for the thousandth time just how beautiful her husband is.

‘Are we really doing this?’ He whispers it, as if speaking out loud might summon the capital’s crowds to their secluded little corner of the countryside.

The world around them is still quiet, unmoving except for the rippling of the wind through the trees as Katara catches her bottom lip between her teeth and scans their surroundings.

‘There’s no one around.’

‘No reason for anyone to come up here.’

‘And it’s a warm day.’

‘And I want you.’

Warmth floods down through her chest, her stomach, pooling in the space between her legs where the truth in his words is starting to press against her with the shifting of her hips over him. She watches the glimmer in his eyes flare as she echoes his words back:

‘And I want you.’

A second longer of hesitation, a moment’s pause to let the certainty take root, and then they’re pressed back together again in a tangle of tongues and hot, searching hands as a new wave of resolve rushes over them. Through the haze, Katara manages to find enough space from him to ask for confirmation one more time; half-laughing, half-sincere.

‘You sure about this, Fire Lord?’

He’s tugging her back towards him before the question’s even fully-formed.

‘Don’t make me think twice. I’ve clearly lost my mind and neither of us wants it to come back right now.’

It could — _should_ — be a hasty affair. It should be her skirt gathered up around her hips, his trousers pulled down just far enough to bare himself to her heat, all done with some small sense of mindfulness towards their place on this very exposed and theoretically public hilltop.

But the combined splendours of him and this day, this place, seem to be conspiring against her, leaving her drunkenly eager and far more reckless than she had ever intended on being back when she first started sliding her hand up his leg. Here, where the touch of the wind, the sun, the grass goes unhindered, she needs Zuko to be just as immediate; she doesn’t want anything coming between her and his skin.

Their clothes are thrown off without ceremony, each of them tilting and lifting this way and that so they can shed their layers without needing to separate. It’s an awkward, shuffling routine that they have memorised step-for-step by now, and it’s only a few moments before they’re both stripped clear and reaching for each other once more.

The slow slide of him inside her as she presses herself down over him has Katara gasping, tethered to the earth only by the scratch of the grass against her knees and the way Zuko’s hands clutch at her hips. The breeze brushes her hair back from her face, and the clouds continue in their course across the sky, and she doesn’t think her skin has ever felt quite so alive in this way before; her hands seek out the shivers that this new world of sensation has to offer, running over her shoulders, her breasts, _lower_ as Zuko groans and rocks up into her.

It’s easy to break here, in this beautiful, open space where nature welcomes them back to the simplicity of their bodies. Their pace picks up, and his fingers dance over her skin, and she angles herself so that every movement brings him up against a spot that makes her see stars even as the day’s light shines down over them...

But it’s the look on his face — blissful and overwrought, eyes closed and head thrown back — that finally brings her to the quiet, shaking breath of an orgasm that sweeps up her spine and robs the strength from her limbs. Zuko follows after a few moments of her gripping and pulsing around him, his body arching up off the ground, hands pulling her in tight against his chest as he lets out a shuddering moan that only serves to draw her pleasure out further.

They come back down together, not bothering to untangle themselves as they catch their breath. The breeze is stronger now, and Katara feels pinpricks start to break out across her skin as her body cools; she presses herself closer to Zuko, letting his warmth seep into her as she buries her face against his neck. When she laughs, she feels the rumble of his response just as much as she hears it.

‘What?’

His skin is still hot, salted with sweat as she scatters a handful of kisses across his shoulder before lifting her head to meet his gaze. She can see the clouds above them reflected in the sunlit brightness of his eyes.

‘I hate to break it to you, but I think you were wrong — that definitely worked.’

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know your thoughts!
> 
> Love to all, and a happy New Year!


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